Beyond Outrage: What Has Gone Wrong with Our Economy and Our Democracy, and How to Fix Them

Robert B. Reich urges Americans to get beyond mere outrage about the nation’s increasingly concentrated wealth and corrupt politics in order to mobilize and to take back our economy and democracy. Americans can’t rely only on getting good people elected, Reich argues, because nothing positive happens in Washington unless good people outside Washington are organized to help make those things happen after the election. But in order to be effectively mobilized, we need to see the big picture.

Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future

The author of 12 acclaimed books, Robert B. Reich is a Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and has served in three national administrations. While many blamed Wall Street for the financial meltdown, Aftershock points a finger at a national economy in which wealth is increasingly concentrated at the top - and where a grasping middle class simply does not have the resources to remain viable.

Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life

Since the 1970s, and notwithstanding three recessions, the U.S. economy has soared. American capitalism has been a triumph, and it has spread throughout the world. At the same time, argues the former U.S. secretary of labor, Robert B. Reich, the effectiveness of democracy in America has declined. It has grown less responsive to the citizenry, and people are feeling more and more helpless as a result.

Reason: Why Liberals Will Win the Battle for America

From Robert B. Reich, passionate believer in American democracy and public servant, Reason is a guide to confronting and derailing what he sees as the mounting threat to American liberty, prosperity, and security posed by the radical conservatives, Radcons as he calls them.

A Fighting Chance

As a child in small-town Oklahoma, Elizabeth Warren yearned to go to college and then become an elementary school teacher - an ambitious goal, given her family’s modest means. Early marriage and motherhood seemed to put even that dream out of reach, but 15 years later she was a distinguished law professor with a deep understanding of why people go bankrupt. Then came the phone call that changed her life: could she come to Washington, DC, to help advise Congress on rewriting the bankruptcy laws?

Analyzing the movement's deep-seated origins in questions that the country has sought too long to ignore, some of the greatest economic minds and most incisive cultural commentators capture the Occupy Wall Street phenomenon in all its ragged glory. They give listeners an on-the-scene feel for the movement as it unfolds while exploring the heady growth of the protests, considering the lasting changes wrought, and recommending reform.

The top 1 percent of Americans control 40 percent of the nation's wealth. And, as Joseph E. Stiglitz explains, while those at the top enjoy the best health care, education, and benefits of wealth, they fail to realize that "their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live." Stiglitz draws on his deep understanding of economics to show that growing inequality is not inevitable. He examines our current state, then teases out its implications for democracy, for monetary and budgetary policy, and for globalization. He closes with a plan for a more just and prosperous future.

The Conscience of a Liberal

America emerged from Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal with strong democratic values and broadly shared prosperity. But for the past 30 years, American politics has been dominated by a conservative movement determined to undermine the New Deal's achievements. Now, the tide may be turning, and in The Conscience of a Liberal Paul Krugman, the world's most widely read economist and one of its most influential political commentators, charts the way to reform.

The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap

Poverty goes up. Crime goes down. The prison population doubles. Fraud by the rich wipes out 40 percent of the world’s wealth. The rich get massively richer. No one goes to jail. In search of a solution, journalist Matt Taibbi discovered the Divide, the seam in American life where our two most troubling trends - growing wealth inequality and mass incarceration - come together, driven by a dramatic shift in American citizenship: Our basic rights are now determined by our wealth or poverty.

Capitalism v. Democracy offers the key to understanding why corporations are now citizens, money is political speech, limits on corporate spending are a form of censorship, democracy is a free market, and political equality and democratic integrity are unconstitutional constraints on money in politics. Supreme Court opinions have dictated these conditions in the name of the Constitution, as though the Constitution itself required the privatization of democracy.

The Crash of 2016: The Plot to Destroy America - and What We Can Do to Stop It

The United States is more vulnerable today than ever before - including during the Great Depression and the Civil War - because the pillars of democracy that once supported a booming middle class have been corrupted, and without them, America teeters on the verge of the next Great Crash. The United States is in the midst of an economic implosion that could make the Great Depression look like child's play.

Predator Nation: Corporate Criminals, Political Corruption, and the Hijacking of America

Charles H. Ferguson, who electrified the world with his Oscar-winning documentary Inside Job, now explains how a predator elite took over the country, step by step, and he exposes the networks of academic, financial, and political influence, in all recent administrations, that prepared the predators' path to conquest. Over the last several decades, the United States has undergone one of the most radical social and economic transformations in its history.

End This Depression Now!

The Great Recession that began in 2007 is now more than four years old - and counting. Some 24 million Americans are unemployed or underemployed, and at recent rates of job creation we won’t be back to normal levels of employment until late this decade. This is a tragedy. Do we have to accept it? "No!" is the resounding answer given by Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman in this call to arms. We have seen this situation before and we know how to fix it; all we lack is the political will to take action.

The Great Divide: Unequal Societies and What We Can Do About Them

In The Great Divide, Joseph E. Stiglitz expands on the diagnosis he offered in his best-selling book The Price of Inequality and suggests ways to counter America's growing problem. With his signature blend of clarity and passion, Stiglitz argues that inequality is a choice - the cumulative result of unjust policies and misguided priorities.

Smells Like Dead Elephants: Dispatches from a Rotting Empire

Bringing together Matt Taibbi's most incisive and hilarious work from his "Road Work" column in Rolling Stone, Smells Like Dead Elephants shines an unflinching spotlight on the corruption, dishonesty, and sheer laziness of our leaders.

Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy

The current global financial crisis carries a "made in America" label. In this forthright and incisive book, Nobel Laureate Joseph E. Stiglitz explains how America exported bad economics, bad policies, and bad behavior to the rest of the world, only to cobble together a haphazard and ineffective response when the markets finally seized up.

Capital in the Twenty-First Century

What are the grand dynamics that drive the accumulation and distribution of capital? Questions about the long-term evolution of inequality, the concentration of wealth, and the prospects for economic growth lie at the heart of political economy. But satisfactory answers have been hard to find for lack of adequate data and clear guiding theories.

It's Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided with the New Politics of Extremism

Congressional scholars Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein identify two overriding problems that have led Congress—and the United States—to the brink of institutional collapse. But they offer a panoply of useful ideas and reforms, endorsing some solutions, like greater public participation and institutional restructuring, while debunking others, like independent or third-party candidates. Above all, they call on the media as well as the public to focus on the true causes of dysfunction rather than just throwing the bums out every election cycle.

In Dog Whistle Politics, Ian Haney Lopez offers a sweeping account of how politicians and plutocrats deploy veiled racial appeals to persuade white voters to support policies that favor the extremely rich yet threaten their own interests. Dog-whistle appeals generate middle-class enthusiasm for political candidates who promise to crack down on crime, curb undocumented immigration, and protect the heartland against Islamic infiltration, but ultimately vote to slash taxes for the rich.

Publisher's Summary

Robert B. Reich urges Americans to get beyond mere outrage about the nation’s increasingly concentrated wealth and corrupt politics in order to mobilize and to take back our economy and democracy.

Americans can’t rely only on getting good people elected, Reich argues, because nothing positive happens in Washington unless good people outside Washington are organized to help make those things happen after the election. But in order to be effectively mobilized, we need to see the big picture. Reich connects the dots for us, showing why the increasing share of income and wealth going to the top has hobbled jobs and growth for everyone else, while undermining our democracy; has caused Americans to become increasingly cynical about public life; and has turned many Americans against one another. He also explains why the proposals of the “regressive right” are dead wrong and provides a clear road map for what must be done instead. Here is a blueprint for action for everyone who cares about the future of America.

I was looking for some insight on economic and social inequality after seeing a clip of Robert Reich speaking about the topic on a news program. I bought this without knowing much about the author, but he didn't sound like a demagogue and the reviews are so glowing that I thought it would be an interesting listen. The last 3 hours of listening to semi-hysterical talking points have proven me wrong.

This book is probably well regarded on Audible for the same reason that Ann Coulter's toxic brand of punditry get high marks - most people who buy Beyond Outrage are the proverbial choir.

The three part book can roughly be summed up as:

Part 1: Big business and it's senior leadership are wealthy sociopaths.Part 2: The republican party lacks compassion.Part 3: Get out and demonstrate/debate

As a left of middle moderate who understands our financial system reasonably well, I found Reich's arguments to be fairly standard Democratic rhetoric. I did not hear technology, globalization, or economic efficiency mentioned at all. As huge contributors to the current state of the world's economies, these are usually central concepts when discussing long term solutions to US economic woes. Additionally, Reich is strangely mute on the rising bar of entry for would be entrepreneurs and how that impacts economic and social inequality by closing the door on the traditional American method for bootstrapping out of poverty.

Ultimately, this book addresses a really complex set of issues in a short period of time. The approach means that a lot of things are going to be rolled up into oversimplified sound bytes, but it doesn't mean that the material has to come across as political propaganda. Unfortunately, I can't help but feel like I've been at a three hour Occupy Wall Street rally. If you are looking for intuitive, insightful commentary on the current state of the US economy and its challenges, you might want to look elsewhere.

Robert Reich does a good job of summarizing the sickness in America's Public Sector without skimping too much on the details. Very informative and concise. $10 for 3 hours of content is pretty steep. Podcasts do 3 hours for free. That said, if you're in the market for a progressive introduction to Political Activism, this is not a bad place to start.

If you could sum up Beyond Outrage in three words, what would they be?

good story weak editting

Any additional comments?

I don't know if it is because of change of ownership or shakeup of editing department, but the quality of Audible.com books has slipped recently. Numerous incidents of "double passages" where one sentence is read and immediately followed by same portion of authors text with minor change of word or two. Ends up being "double speak". Not at all up to the former standard of quality of audio books.

This author is one of the best voices of reason in the world. Read his books, follow him on social media and learn what he has to teach. The path to a better world is continuously laid out by Robert and if we accept and understand his values and ideas, the world will be better off. Read this read this read this!

Reich's writing and narration is excellent. Explained in very down to earth terms in a tone that is thoughtful and confident of the facts presented, Reich leads the listener through the lists of problems our democracy faces and explains what can be done to correct them. Thank you Mr. Reich for an excellent book that leaves one with hope that even the average citizen can still influence change in our country.

This book was obviously written around the time that Romney was becoming the front-runner in the race and Paul Ryan was gaining prominence as a conservative economic force. And it pretty much lays down the talking points for moderate-to-progressive political thought on the election and the economy. Frankly, I'm outraged more people haven't read this book.

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